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"A conniving father and daughter meet up with the heir to a brewery fortune-- a wealthy but naive snake enthusiast-- and attempt to bamboozle him at a cruise ship card table. Their plan is quickly abandoned when the daughter falls in love with their prey. But when the heir gets wise to her gold-digging ways, she must plot to re-conquer his heart."--Container.

Opinion

From Library Staff

A man and his daughter con people on an ocean liner. Then, like any good romantic comedy, she falls for the mark. But when the heir gets wise to her gold-digging ways, she must plot to re-conquer his heart.

From the critics

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Professional card shark “Colonel” Harrington and his daughter Jean (Barbara Stanwyck, outstanding!) make a living by fleecing unsuspecting millionaires on luxury cruise holidays. This time they have their eyes set on the bumbling and wholly naive Charles Pike (an appropriately ovine Henry Fonda) heir to the Pike Pale Ale fortune who is sailing back to America after spending a year in the Amazon rainforest. But just as they prepare to relieve him of several thousand dollars at the card table Jean’s flirtatious act backfires when she finds herself actually falling in love with the unsuspecting sap and decides to protect him from her father’s cheating ways. Unfortunately, before Jean can come clean with Charles he finds out about the pair of scam artists and unceremoniously dumps her. Not one to take humiliation lightly, Jean —now masquerading as the Lady Eve, niece of a minor British noble—ups the stakes and plots a very mean-spirited revenge on Pike and his family. Fate, however, has slightly different plans for both parties… Cleverly placed images of snakes, Paradise, and that notorious apple add a little extra zest to Preston Sturges’ wildly comic battle of the sexes which sees poor Adam repeatedly falling (often literally) for Eve’s seductive charms. With action ranging from slapstick to oh-so-subtle eroticism and a script bubbling over with snappy comebacks and double entendres this is a deceptively simple comedy for grown-ups which mocks romance even as it revels in it. Funny stuff!

Can you imagine: Stanwyck and Fonda! No team could be better. Funny, they were so diametrically opposed politically that even with their opposite points of view, they were great friends and wonderful playmates. Them, plus Demarest and Pallette and and Coburn AND the great, great Sturges - a pure delight. And that goes for the several times I've seen the film.

Few directors will have as many movies placed in the National Film Registry as Preston Sturges. "The Lady Eve" was his third movie that he both wrote and directed. In fact, he was the first writer Hollywood writer allowed to direct his own movie. He knew what he wrote and he knew who he wanted to say the lines he had written. In this case, Barbara Stanywck and Henry Fonda were his choices. She plays a card shark posing as a member of a rich family and Henry Fonda an innocent millionaire. The two would have many twists and turns in their relationship. It is all wonderful fun and made for a classic movie.
P.S. KCLS has 3 copies "The Lady Eve" and none are checked out. This is an excellent time to have a wonderful movie right away.

Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck have rarely been better and never funnier. Neither would have more successful screen chemistry. Fonda is heir to a fortune and Stanwyck is a con artist that he can't help tripping over.

The movie has some of Sturges best dialogue and several ingenious twists. One of the best romantic comedies of all time.